


Balance

by BluCheeto



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Force mates, Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, TROS was beautiful and hurt a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:34:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluCheeto/pseuds/BluCheeto
Summary: (VAGUE TROS SPOILER WARNING!)I wrote this long before Rise of Skywalker came out, but when I stumbled over it after watching the movie, it read a little like Rey and Ben’s final canonic moment together. (Yes, my heart's bleeding.)
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	Balance

His heart stutters when he feels her in the night.

He fights it. Berates himself. Chalks it up to loneliness. Years of isolation. That’s all it is: the simple allure of proximity. It has nothing to do with her. It could be anyone. Any pretty girl asleep in his bed. Any warm body. 

Her force signature is bright. Hot. Uncomfortable to feel so close.

He is at his weakest, these nights. Thoughts making dangerous— _traitorous_ —circles. He cares nothing for her. She is nothing. He is affected solely by the warmth of her; a sensation easily duplicated. _Could be anyone;_ his new mantra.

He doesn’t think she’s caught onto the opened connection when she’s asleep. He isn’t sure he wants her to. 

Kylo grits his teeth and turns his head, just enough to glance at her; which is more than he’s allowed himself since she’d severed (conscious) contact with him that day on Crait. 

He wants- 

He wants to hate her. Wants to destroy what she stands for; the side she stands on. 

Instead he lays beside her, fighting for control over the longing that gnaws through his insides. 

_It could be anyone._

_Anyone._

_Any pretty face._

_Any warm body._

Nights like this he is at his most detestable. At his worst, his weakest. 

And he’s never been so weak as _this_ night—the night he finally gives in and turns his head, eyes seeking her visage like a frightened boy seeks his nightlight. 

Her lashes flutter. Kylo’s heart follows. _There is no one else so vulnerable, so lonely._ Her breathing is quiet, unobtrusive. Kylo’s is unsteady. _No one so desperate. So timid and voracious. So afraid to want, or need._

 _You are infuriatingly singular,_ he thinks. _My reflection and foil both._

His affection for her is so elemental and consuming it feels a bit like the Force, itself; he’s in control yet at its mercy, it’s inside yet surrounds him. 

His heart gives a painful kick when she takes a slow, deep breath in. She shifts one of her legs softly across his sheets, wrist sliding up her side to brush her jaw, knee brought just the slightest bit closer to his ribcage. 

Kylo- 

Kylo hates himself. Detests the sting in his eyes at the feel of her settling so easily beside him. She beckons without knowing; her force signature slotting with his as if cosmically engineered to do so. Every cell in his arm closest to her is tensed; so eager to reach for her that he is fighting gravity to hold it back. 

He gives in to a fraction of her pull by quietly twisting his body to face hers. 

_You’re so small asleep,_ he thinks. He hasn’t physically seen her any place but battlefields, this past year. There, she is a giant. Formidable. Something mythical. And yet he fears her more here, in his bed. Here, she is no fierce warrior; just the lonely girl wrapped in firelight who reached for his hand. 

Here, she is far more lethal. 

He should lie more to himself. 

_She is nothing. She is the enemy. She is weak and ordinary and forgettable._ She _should_ be “just anyone.” _Should_ be “a warm body,” “a pretty face,” “nothing more.” 

...Fuck.

He stares. 

_Fuck_. 

She never has been. 

Not since Takodana, when he first held her simmering thoughts—barbed, sharp, transparent as any he’d reached for before—in the palm of his outstretched hand. 

There is no possible replacement in the galaxy. Not for her dirt-streaked cheeks or unkempt hair. Not for her piercing gaze or oil-stained fingers. Not for her snarling, teeth-baring, righteous fighting style. For that soft, slight scent of desert sand—a sun-baked perfume she may never banish from her skin. 

No other pair of hands would- _have_ reached for him so desperately. 

She is singular, and it is agony. 

He can’t keep himself from reaching for her thoughts, just once. His eyes trail across her freckles as he narrows in on her dreams. 

They lace together behind his own eyes...and her dreams-

...

It’s a delicious electrocution; utterly shocking with none of the pain, his skin tingling. And Kylo Ren knows he’s never understood true balance in the force before this night. 

Because when he caresses her thoughts—as bare and scorched as the day they beckoned him in the forest—he finds _himself_. 

He finds that what Rey feels for him is not anger alone, but a deep ache. He finds daydreams; his black hair tangled in her fingers, his dark eyes coming closer, closer, until closing, forehead resting peacefully against hers. She is in his arms, he is in hers. She feels protective, _possessive,_ even. 

Dreams. Mere fantasies. They should mean nothing to him. 

They are everything he has ever wanted in his miserable, forceforsaken life.

He swallows, staring at her sleeping form. Clenching his teeth, he tries to blink away the stinging in his eyes. 

_Rey,_

_Damn you. I have all the power in the galaxy and what is_ any _of it worth when you are right here._

His heart _stops_ when she shifts. A hot shock roots him in place as her arms, chest, and leg press suddenly around, against, and over him. Her little nose is making a slow, sleepy circle against his bare collarbones. Her arm squeezing, beckoning him tighter against her; chest-to-chest. Her leg is hooked over his thigh, flexing and coaxing; pelvis-to-pelvis. 

She is hot as an asteroid, colliding so gently against his surface and yet still he feels the impact—deep, irreparable—in every place she’s landed. 

He ruptures at her touch. 

_Rey._

_I love you._

_That’s it. It’s all I am. It’s everything I have: I love you._

He crushes her closer, breathes in the desert storm in his arms. 

_I love you._

If being tangled with her is surrender, Kylo will wave the white flag until he is stardust. 

Without a shit left to give, he cries. He holds her, and kisses her forehead. 

Then, he experiences true balance for the first time in his life: he rests his forehead against Rey’s, and watches her lips lift in a sweet, lazy smile.  
  
“ _Ben,”_ she sighs. 

He feels her affection. Her warmth. Her pure, enduring love pouring into and surrounding him. 

And finally. 

Gods, _finally_.

He feels peace. He feels balance. 

He’s home _._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I personally love what they chose to do with Rey and Ben. But I’m sad, too—like so many Reylos, I wanted more as much as I wanted the right ending. 
> 
> Is anyone else bursting at the seams with excitement over the extended edition of the Rise of Skywalker novelization? Because I am.
> 
> Thank you for reading ❤️


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